‘Don’t they understand? I am opposed to war. Especially nuclear war. Full stop. This is nothing to do with Left or Right, East or West. Nothing to do with ideology.’ She paused and he could see her calculating it all. ‘You’ve been spying on me, haven’t you? Feeding me to the Soviets, and MI5 or 6 or whoever it is. I’m the piggy in the middle here.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Believe me, please. I’ve passed nothing on you, or anyone, anything, to Special Branch that they don’t know already. But yes, I have been used by them. As much to sniff out the Soviets as to sniff out CND.’

‘Special Branch?’

‘They were collaborating with MI5,’ he said. He could hear himself, knew what she must think of him, was powerless to claw it back. His stomach clammed tight and he could feel a tremor creep out and convulse his body. He clenched his hands. Don’t move.

She wandered off, running her finger along the cabinets, leaving a trail of condensation. ‘He lied to me,’ she said. ‘My father lied to me.’ She looked at her feet, then up at him. ‘I’m going to have it out with him. Tell him what I think of him. What it’s like to have a bastard for a father. He betrayed me. All of us.’ She threaded her arms through the sleeves of her coat in sharp, awkward gestures. ‘And you lied to me.’

‘No, Bette,’ he said, using her German name again. ‘I never lied to you.’

She fumbled with the belt, knotting it tight.

‘Let me come with you,’ he said.

‘Haven’t you caused enough pain and havoc?’

Yes, he wanted to say, yes, you’re right. But he couldn’t let her slip away, not again. Nor did she say no, not in so many words.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Hatfield: November 1958

John was the last person she wanted with her, but she was nervous about going alone. She knew her father’s metal, the freeze-cold steel of his heart, but this felt like a deeper betrayal. Mutti used to say that his work in the war was top secret. Bette had thought it a mysterious, important job that put her a cut above Greta with a common foot soldier of a father. She had no idea how insidious it was, how evil. Had Mutti?

It was raining when they got off the train and the wind had picked up, gusting drops of icy water that stung her cheeks.